Henneth Annûn Story Archive's news blog. HASA news and announcements for the Blogger crowd. We also have news at Yahoo and LiveJournal, as well as the main HASA site.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

HASA Reviewed Stories December 2010

Since the previous Bulletin, 3 stories have been reviewed and there are currently also 5 stories in review. Why not make someone’s holiday and review a story between Christmas and the New Year? New submissions are of course welcome as well!

Member participation is crucial for reviews. The more people are involved in reviewing, the more opinions are represented. Just as importantly, having more people involved means that stories pass through review more quickly - which is good for everyone. If you are an active reviewer, why not go and check out a story?

Or, if you are a writer, take the plunge and submit a story for review (and when you do, remember: Put one in, take one out.

By submitting a story for review, you are asking nine other members to read and evaluate it. So why not do for the other authors who have a story in review what you'd like other reviewers to do for you: check out one of the stories already in review and give it a read.

Becoming a reviewerIf you're not an active reviewer, but think you can spare a bit of time... – even if you just review one or two stories in a month, every review is welcome. If you are logged in, you can sign up here if you've been a member of HASA for thirty days or more.

Daunted by the idea of reviewing? Don’t worry, reviewing at its simplest comes down to asking yourself: “Would I recommend this story to someone?” Then, whether the answer is 'yes' or 'no', you can make a choice from the capsule reasons to clarify your decision. If you want to, you can add a few more words to convey what you (dis)liked about the story, but just the capsule reason is perfectly fine as well.

And remember: even if you think you're too critical or not critical enough: your review is only one of nine, and all points of view are welcome. Not every reviewer has to review every story and in the end it does all level out to a balanced judgement.

Reviewed story spotlightThese stories have passed through review since the previous bulletin. Congratulations to all authors; well done!

Truth Be Told by Virtuella Rating: Adult Genre: GeneralEra: 3rd Age - Post-Ring WarSummary: The newly appointed Chronicler of the Mark is faced with unexpected challenges, and painting in colour is the least of them. When he finds that not all is truth that the Eorlingas hold to be true, will his conflict with Eomer end his career? Reason for rating: brief scenes of violence, implie ...

A Father's Duty by Larner Rating: GeneralGenre: GeneralEra: 3rd Age - The StewardsSummary: Young Bilbo has an encounter with his alarming Took grandfather. A true drabble.

The Last Day Of Autumn by YgrainRating: AdultGenre: GeneralEra: 3rd Age - Ring WarSummary: The last days of Gilraen The Fair, as seen by those around. A side-step from cannon by making Aragorn present; also taking some liberty in the manner of Gilraen's death. Rated adult for safety reasons, dealing with deathbed experience and details of terminal illness.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

This month's HASA How-to tells you how to display an image, for instance an award banner, with your story.

How do I...... display an image with my story?

You can put images into story chapters or in your story intro by linking to them. Images in the story intro will not display on the story lists, only in the story's own overview page, so if you want to display an award that your story has won, put information about your award in the intro as well to have it show up in the story lists. For example, say "Winner of Legolas in Funny Hats Award, 2009". Search engines will find this text.

Where to link your image fromImages cannot be hosted on HASA, so you need to place them somewhere else, for instance Picasa, Photobucket, LJ, your own webspace...

Before uploading your image to the web, remember to reduce the file size and pixel dimensions of larger images by using your photo editing software's 'save for web' option. This won't usually be necessary for award banners. Smaller images load faster and display more clearly than images sized with HTML.

Get the URL of the image before linking your image. Check that you linked to the image and not the page it is on by pasting the URL into your browser's address bar. If you see the picture rather than the whole page after hitting Enter, you have the right URL.

How to link to your imageWhen you're editing a chapter, there is an 'add image' button on the toolbar:

This gives you a dialogue where you can specify where the image you're linking to is hosted, and you can also provide a short description of the image (this is what shows up when the image itself doesn't load for whatever reason; it's also what is used by screen readers, so it's useful to fill in, even if it says no more than 'image of ....'), and a few other settings, which you can ignore if you like. Now press 'insert' and your image should be there.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Thanks to your donations November is paid; we still need donations for December. HASA is a fee-free Web site, run for the enjoyment of quality JRRT fanfiction. We want to be able to keep these stories and resources online and accessible. HASA depends on member & reader donations to pay hosting fees. The hosting fee pays for the dedicated server we need to provide the features and fun visitors love - stories, comments, forums, alerts, challenges and more. Currently our account is at -$141. We should not be running this far negative for this long. Thanks to recent donations we're less behind; we still need to get positive.

Our PayPal account has been updated and there are now three ways to donate. HASA now accepts subscriptions:

*One time donations - this is what we've always had *Monthly donations - set up a monthly recurring donation in amounts from $5 to $25 dollars.*Annual donations - set up a recurring annual donation in amounts from $15 to $50 dollars.

Donation buttons are on the home page (one-time donation only), all story list pages and on the Donations page.

If you haven't donated yet to help support HASA, please consider doing so; any support will be timely and greatly appreciated. HASA gets a lot of traffic and offers many great stories and features.

If you're a little short on spare change at the moment, donations of time are always appreciated. There's an archive full of stories just waiting for comments, authors who would dearly love an email complimenting them on their work, challenges that need entries, playlists that need to be created, and forums begging for discussions. If you are a reviewer, check out a story today. If you aren't a reviewer, no better time than now to sign up. If you are an author, please consider donating a new story.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

December birthdays and links to the stories written or updated in November, as well as an update on HASA’s funding.

FundingAfter paying December fees, our account is currently at -$201. As you know, HASA depends on member and reader donations to pay hosting fees. The hosting fee pays for the dedicated server we need to provide the features and fun visitors love - stories, comments, forums, alerts, challenges and more.

First of course, thank you! to all of you who have donated either this month or this year. If you haven't donated yet to help support HASA, please consider doing so; any amount is welcome and is greatly appreciated.

If you're a little short on spare change at the moment, donations of time are always appreciated. Those stories aren’t going to read or write themselves, after all! If you’re a reviewer, why not go over to Reviews and review one or two of the stories that are waiting? Or comment on a story or write an email to an author...

December Birthday Challenge

Is your birthday in December, and would you like a drabble about your favourite character or topic? You can request it here.

All of us writers love feedback. It is the lembas and miruvor that sustains us as we write our story, and leaving a few words about a story you read is always a nice thing to do, whether the story is new or old.

Every fifteen minutes HASA highlights a story chosen at random from the Reviewed and General stories in the archive. Read the currently featured story on our front page.

Friday, December 3, 2010

After paying November fees, our account is at -$178. The $150 bill for December will be due soon. We should not be running this far negative for this long. HASA depends on member & reader donations to pay hosting fees.

HASA is a fee-free Web site, run for the enjoyment of quality JRRT fanfiction & we want to be able to keep these stories and resources online and accessible. HASA depends on member & reader donations to pay hosting fees. The hosting fee pays for the dedicated server we need to provide the features and fun visitors love - stories, comments, forums, alerts, challenges and more.

If you haven't donated yet to help support HASA, please consider doing so; any support will be timely and greatly appreciated. HASA gets a lot of traffic and offers many great stories and features.

If you're a little short on spare change at the moment, donations of time are always appreciated. There's an archive full of stories just waiting for comments, authors who would dearly love an email complimenting them on their work, challenges that need entries, playlists that need to be created, and forums begging for discussions. If you are a reviewer, check out a story today. If you aren't a reviewer, no better time than now to sign up. If you are an author, please consider donating a new story.